Kanan Devan Tea Museum of Munnar

The first of its kind in India, the Kanan Devan Tea museum attracting hundreds of visitors every day is located at the beautiful Nullatani estate just 3 kms  (5 mins drive) from Munnar town. We kept this as the last item in our itinerary because of 2 reasons, one; it is a museum and two; we thought we know everything about tea already.

The tea museum tour begins with a 30 min documentary about its history and the tea plantation culture of Munnar. It was an interesting presentation covering the history of Munnar as such from early 18th century. The later acquisitions of the company were really interesting from Finlay to Tatas and then the birth of KDHP. You can read more details here. Today KDHP own 85% of the total tea plantations in Munnar.

After the documentary was a session by one of the experts about the tea making process and the health benefits of tea. The way he explained how to make a perfect tea and how to drink it too, made us all silent for couple of seconds. All of a sudden we got a new sense out of the 3 letter word TEA, and whatever we knew all these years about tea just changed over an hour. Amazing bunch of information, we are going to take it going forward.

That moment we felt sorry to disregard this in the beginning. Now we strongly recommend a visit to the museum which takes a couple of hours at the most. There is an outlet were you can also purchase fresh produces of KDHP. If you are planning to visit make sure you reach there before 4 PM that is when the last batch of factory visit begins.

It also offers nice view of the tea plantation hills.

Cheeyappara Waterfalls on Kochi - Munnar highway

The cheeyappara waterfalls on the Kochi - Munnar highway between Neriamangalam and Adimali is a visual treat to all the tourists heading Munnar.

Flowing down a rocky slope in 7 step cascades this waterfalls will look best during and after monsoon months (Jun - Sep). You can walk under the falls and get wet only if the conditions permit, but its still a long way to Munnar and there are no changing rooms around.

From cheeyapara you start to feel the hills and forest towards Munnar and the temperature start to fall as you go up. The place is also famous for landslides during monsoons, one such incident took life of 3 in 2013. It is advised to verify the weather reports and alerts before you start.